Commitment

It was just any other training week. Tough track workout, 7 mile tempo, longish run yesterday and then today I had to race! I was pretty psyched up to get out there and see what I could do. I feel very good about my running these days and super confident my pr's are all going down really soon! Just not today.

My training partner CV and I lined up for our first race together since starting our training with Coach G. We decided to go out together and target 6:10 pace. We ran 6:06 and it felt pretty easy even with a stiff headwind. After the mile CV fell back a bit as I tried to maintain the pace. I was doing well until we came to a big ugly hill. I pushed up to the top, but that mile ended up being 6:23.

I managed a 6:13 for the next mile, but the fourth mile was hilly and full of turns and according to my Garmin was 6:22. The previous 3 miles markers were all right on with my Garmin, but for some reason mile 4 was way long and if I went by the race my 4th mile was close to 6:50 pace! Definitely not!

I came up to a corner and was excited to hammer home and go for a pr. I knew it would be close, but I felt like I could do it. I turned the corner and saw a sea of walkers--again! Just like the last race. Drat! I didn't sweat it too much. I just ran around them. I pushed and pushed and had to run up a driveway and onto the high school track. I had to do almost a full lap, but with a little less than 200 to go my watch beeped. And then as I came around the turn I saw the clock and decided it wasn't worth puking to run 31:4x. I still pushed, just nothing crazy and came in with an official 31:45. UGH.

I checked my Garmin and it showed I ran 5.10 and CV's showed hers was 5.09. My Garmin showed I ran 31:10 for 5 miles which would have been a 4 second pr. My fifth mile was 6:03 and my fastest, which always makes me happy. I know that might not have been accurate either, but it still stung a little bit. At the same time, I met my goal of going for it. I committed to that race even when all my time goals went out the window. I was the first woman (one of just a handful of wins for me, yeah!) and was even third overall. I know I am getting in the best shape ever and that I will be logging big pr's this year. Just you wait and see!